Yes, like many others, I enjoy the Super Bowl TV adfest each year. Many others write about the ads such as Jim Nail from Cymfony so I prefer to take a look at the Web site tie ins – you know those little URLs at the bottom of the screen as the TV ad ends. I'm only interested in the unique ones created just for the Super Bowl. Almost nobody looks at these things (except me). I think they are very telling of brands.

My fascination with this little known part of the adfest started in 2005 when I viewed the McDonald’s Lincoln Fry Super Bowl ad Web tie in and learned it was a bogus blog. This kind of fake ad is just too oily for me. McDonald’s got an F that year.

The best site tie in this year? By far for me it is the Taco Bell site thebun.com Why? Because the site does not exist! How freakin’ cool is it that Taco Bell ran a URL at the bottom of the "Lion ad" was thebun.com and when you go there… nothing. It took me a moment to get it. Unlike McDonald’s, Taco Bell has no bun. (Note: Maybe my browser just didn’t work. But I don’t think so. I think Taco Bell snuck this one in. Viral Marketing greatness. I will be using this example on the speaking circuit for years). Nice job guys!! Grade A+

Taco Bell also has another site fourthmeal.com "a meal between dinner and breakfast." I like thebun.com too much so no grade for this one from Taco Bell.

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UPDATE at 1:30 EST Monday February 5, 2007

My mistake.

Now I realize that the URL at the very end of the ad is the entire phase thinkoutsidethebun.com (which does work) and my eye saw just the bottom part -- thebun.com

It is written like this

think
outside
the bun.com

And I watched it ten times to make sure too!

Damn, I thought Taco Bell had come up with a hot viral thing, but it was just my error.

They still get an A+ because I've spent an hour thinking about and writing about the Taco Bell brand.

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Some other Web site tie ins:

Doritossnackstrongproductions.com This is where you can check out the top 5 fan produced Super Bowl ads. These are great. The site is well designed and it is easy to check out the ads. Grade A-

FedExfedexfootball.com This is a site to showcase ads. I don’t like the stuff about pre-game predictions. If the first time I see this site is by entering the URL during the game, the predictions are meaningless. Boomer’s trivia challenge is OK. Grade C+

Pepsisuperbowl.com/pepsi This is the Super Can Promotion from Pepsi. Again, my problem with this is that I had no clue about the contest and when I did log in, the contest was already over. C

Snickersafterthekiss.com This one works well. It provides 5 alternative endings to thr ad that they ran and you can vote for your favorite. I like "Motor Oil" the best. Snickers will show the winner during the Daytona 500. I also like that they make the contest to choose the "Most Satisfying Ending" and the Snickers tagline is "Most Satisfying". Nice. Grade A

American Heart Association beatyourrisk.com High Blood Pressure Risk Calculator. Guys, you screwed up. The calculator requires Adobe Flash 9 to be loaded. Yes several other sites required plug ins and they got higher grades than you. That's because of demographics. In my experience, the older generation tends not to have the latest and greatest software loaded and often has difficulty downloading, so to insist on this for a heart risk system is bad. Grade F.

Budweiserbud.tv This site requires registration which I do not understand. Registration should be optional not required. They say that applying for a user name and password by giving up email, date of birth, mobile phone and other data ensures you get “new episodes, shows, and other things.” Bad idea in my opinion. Grade F.

If corporations really want to make consumers happy, they should forego costly Super Bowl ads and instead invest in a Chief Customer Officer, a single person of power charged with putting him or herself in the customers’ mind.
But instead they spend their time and money making sure their ad is funny and entertaining, which doesn’t mean it sells more products. A good marketer surprises consumers by giving them new ideas on how and why to use a particular product. Ads developed by typical people or starring famous celebrities may get laughs, but are unlikely to generate sales. For every dollar you spend you should be seeing a dollar back and I sincerely doubt that these companies are generating an additional $2.6 million due to these Super Bowl ads.
Marketers need to stop thinking that marketing HAS to be creative. It HAS to sell goods and services. Sometimes the least creative marketing is the most effective.
Mark Stevens
CEO of MSCO
www.msco.com/blog

Mark, thanks for stopping by my blog. "Your Marketing Sucks" is one of my all time favorite book titles.
I do agree that Super Bowl ads are not the best way to spend marketing dollars. But as a marketer who focuses almost exclusively online, I admit that I like to look at the web site tie ins to the ads.
Cheers, David

David,
You weren't the only one looking for Website tie-ins. I was, too. Plus, I had my eyes peeled for B2B companies.
Did you notice SalesGenie's ad? Neither my husband or I liked it, but they did post their offer for 100 free sales leads!
I was very disappointed with this year's crop of ads and after taking notes on all of them until half-time, stopped watching.
We ended up flipping back and forth between the game and Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl. Now there was some serious advertising!